The Humble Bundle for Android isn't just a great way to get cheap indie games and help charity - it's also shaping up to be a pretty great platform for launching Android ports. Take Eufloria: it's been available on Steam for PC since 2009, but once it came to the Humble Bundle, it was made available for Mac and Linux too. Now the game has been released to the Google Play Store. Five bucks gets you all the interstellar botanical strategy that you can handle.

If you're new to Eufloria, it's in the "chill" genre that seems so pervasive these days. You play a species of interstellar plant that needs small planets on which to grow, and after spawning enough seeds, can spread to other planets as well. You're not the only plant life around: you'll need to ration resources and grow defensive structures in order to survive and expand. With simple aesthetics and classically-inspired ambient music, the whole thing looks like a playable version of a Fantasia short.

Eufloria costs five dollars, and if that seems like a lot, consider what some other PC and console developers are charging for ported games. If you're still on the fence, you can try out the original game on your PC via a Steam demo.

Comments

I would add that the old PC Steam demo is very out of date and was cool but harder to get into. Eufloria HD has been refined hugely since then and the Play Store has the most recent version.

By Monday or Tuesday we'll have released a free Eufloria HD Demo on the Play Store. This will contain 5 levels, enough to give users enough information about the game and whether it'll run ok on their device.

Alex Amsel

The Play Store now has a demo :)

gautch

You mentioned this "chill" genera of games. Maybe an article highlighting the best chill games is in order.

To be honest, for Android-only users, games may not seem to lag or un on a low framerate. But I am someone who plays almost 50% on both my Tegra 3 tab and iPad 2. You may say a game (for example, Shadowgun Deadzone) runs smoothly on Android. But the moment you play it on the iPad 2, the game suddenly feels like it lags and runs on a low framerate on Android. A matter of perspective.

karmen

no pic = hoax

would be better if you post some video on youtube to show the difference between lag and lag-free performance, from your perspective.

defred34

I don't have the equipment. But sites like Pocketgamer have shows side-by-side difference between the iPad 2/3 and Nexus 7 running games like NFS MW and Horn. Go check them out.

And please, this is not a hoax. This is just the sad but real truth. I hate Apple so much, yet I have to have the iPad so I can play the heavier games. "Normal" games play along just OK on my Android tab.

Alex Amsel

defred34 is not wrong actually. Apple's devices, like them or not, just seem to be a little more responsive all round.

I did some comparison between my Nexus 7 and my mass of Apple devices (we need them all for testing - not Apple fanboys!). It looks like the touch input is slightly different in smoothness/lag, and that takes away a little smoothness/control. You'd notice on some things more than others, but you probably wouldn't notice unless you had something to compare with.

It will make it feel like a lower frame rate but that's not always true by the way. If the touch input is not smooth, it feels like a frame rate issue but isn't. We got fooled by this ourselves when trying to sort out a genuine input bug on Eufloria Android.

Also, Apple hardware is surprisingly good compared to Android devices. Even iPad 1 compares favourably which I'm really surprised about, other than for on board memory.

squiddy20

Don't kid me. Even with the processor underclocked and using the "powersave" governor on a Sprint Galaxy Nexus running CM10, there's no lag.

spigott

I'm not kidding :)
Never had a lag, even on old Allwinner tab.

Alex Amsel

Hey defred! If it's laggy we'd like to know what the device is and what OS so we can either investigate or make it unavailable on that device in future (if it isn't playable enough). Joys of Android! It's also why we're releasing a demo ASAP.